The Beautiful Brain explores the latest findings from the ever-growing field of neuroscience through monthly long-form essays, reviews, galleries, short-form blog posts and more, with particular attention to the dialogue between the arts and sciences.

Caleb Warren and A. Peter McGraw, two psychological scientists from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder, argue that violations of norms are laughable, but only if benign. If I actually shot the sheriff, it would not matter whether or not I killed the deputy. If I really did it, it’s really serious. McGraw explains:

“We laugh when Moe hits Larry because we know that Larry’s not really being hurt. It’s a violation of social norms. You don’t hit people, especially a friend. But it’s okay because it’s not real.”

Here’s a link to a PDF of the paper, published in Psychological Science. Disclaimer: It is not a knee-slapper. In fact, the only thing we surely don’t need science to tell us is that the easiest way to ruin a joke is to explain it to death.